(urth) S&S vs. SF in BotNS

[Lee Berman]

>Jeff Wilson: For example, circular craters are observed on the surfaces of 

>planets and satellites where humans are simply not equipped to go, establishing 

>the independence of circular geometry from imperfect humanity.


I don't see that. It is still a human being who is calling the crater circular.

People see a crater as resembling a round bowl.  An alien intelligence might find 

nothing in common between these objects.

 

>David Duffy: The only problem with Popperian falsificationism is that it doesn't say 
>anything about where the hypothesis that is being tested comes from.

 

I agree. The hypothesis came from a person's guess, hunch, intuition or whatever. In his

quest for establishing an objective process for science, Karl couldn't fully eliminate the

human factor.

 

>Mathematical modelling is "popular" because mathematics summarizes or abstracts what _is_.  

>We don't have to have faith that "2+2=4": it is a simple tautology. We don't have arguments 

about this, and we don't bother designing experiments to falsify it.

 

Tautologies are also based on human agreement. "It is what it is" as the saying goes.  Sane 

human beings all agree that 2+2=4. But by what criteria do we know that insane people are 

wrong? We voted, and majority rules. And don't we sometimes benefit from out-of-the-box "insane"

thinking. (I think Einstein would sound insane to Euclid)

 

But even counting insane people, there is one box we cannot think outside of: the box of 

human intelligence. Our every thought is confined within it. And I have trouble thinking

it must be the be-all, end-all way of understanding the universe. I will need confirmation

from a number of independently evolved alien life forms before I accept that ape brains on

a small planet on the fringe of the Milky Way have managed to discover a method for understanding

everything in the universe in the only way they can be figured out (i.e. science).

 

>And finally, replication shows you understand something, you can do it again.
>Even nonscientists like to be able to do the same thing twice and get the same
>result.

 

Yes, we humans do like replication of results. But I don't see how that makes our view so

universally perfect. Other intelligences may be more attuned to indeterminacy and for them

quantum physics might make perfect sense to every child while bouncing a ball is a deep mystery.

 

>Dave Lebling: The idea that scientists do this because it "feels right" trivializes a lot of intense 

>philosophical discussion about what makes science work.

 

Not for me. Science is an amazing tool. Surely the best tool we currently have for understanding the 

world. But I don't feel the need to think it grants us the potential for total understanding of 

everything in every possible dimension. That's where I think science starts to fill the role

that religion fills among the faithful. Since I don't need that "master of the universe" feeling, I am 

willing to recognize the limits of science and enjoy its fruits in my own small slice of the cosmos.